Hotel Casablanca

Background:

Preston is one of the most underrated Rogue investigator mostly because he is misunderstood as being janky and plays very differently compared to the rest. As a player who usually plays the fighter role (Survivor and Guardian), Preston is my favourite Rogue and also clue finder.

I have fine-tuned this deck over the course of two campaigns, The Circle Undone (Normal) and Return to Dunwich Legacy (Hard). Not only he has been a blast to play, he carries his own weight with the plethora of options available at his disposal all at the cost of the measly penny.

Here's an example of the deck's final iteration https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/511803

Strengths & Weaknesses:

+Resources are readily available allowing for a lot of flexibility

+Requires relatively less XP to perform well, allowing for a lot of excess XP to try various upgrades

+Soaks a lot of damage/horror

+Easily brushes off most basic weaknesses

+Bypasses skill checks

-Unorthodox playstyle

-Vulnerable in the first few rounds as you set-up

-Lack of card draw

-Difficult to pilot due to having so many actions, at times it feels as if you're playing an euro boardgame

-Hard to deal with elite enemies on your own

-Achilles' heel Paranoia. Just quit, just concede, or just take a break from this game. Clearly you have done something wrong to have angered the Old Gods.

Play Style:

Contrary to the image Preston portrays, you need to be frugal with your resources, your own resources that is. Your money is your money and daddy's money is whatever. Always have ways to utilize your inheritance each round. For that, you'll need to draw a lot of cards. Always favor drawing cards over gaining a resource since money mean little to you.

On turns which you have nothing to spend on, you'll wanna play multiple econ cards before cashing out. You should hold on to Lodge Debts and play it near the very end since you need to maintain a critical amount of wealth in order for Money Talks and Well Connected to function effectively.

You also want to better pace yourself for steady turns from round to round instead of the usual explosive ones.

Core Upgrades:

Charisma - Your most important upgrade and arguably one of the best in the game. With the first Charisma I believe a good ratio to be at least 3 different allies with a total of 5 cards.

Lola Santiago - Replace Cunning. Lola is stellar in this deck, I'd say she's even more important than Leo De Luca since she's going to be your main way of gathering clues for the rest of the campaign.

Charisma - With second Charisma I believe a good ratio to be at least 5 different allies with a total of 7 cards.

Delilah O'Rourke - Replace Cunning. Contrary to what most people think, Delilah works better for Preston more so than Finn with his free evade action since this is a very resource intensive way to deal with enemies. Oh this bae is just too wonderful, please assassinate my heart

Haste Replace Swift Reflexes. Unlocks a pseudo 5th action every turn. Initially used for card draw and later on potentially used with Trial by Fire for explosive quintuple Investigate/Fight turns!

Lola Santiago - Replace Peter. More Lola, more clues, more better.

Cat Burglar - Replaces Decoy. Great way to escape when in a pinch, it even works with bosses. Also a way to convert your move action into an activate action to synergize with Haste.

Hot Streak - Replaces Investments. Better burst econ to quickly ramp up your econ. This deck can never have too much econ since you need to be floating a lot of resources for Money Talks and Well Connected in the mid game.

Streetwise - This will be useful on turns that you have nothing to spend on.

Mulligan Guide:

1) Engine pieces like Luca and Haste

2) Take Heart for initial card draw

3) Lola and Delilah to secure the early stages of the game

4) Hot Streak and Cache for initial econ

5) Maybe a Trial by Fire just to be on the safe side